“Every £100 a business spends on design, they increase turnover by £225.” - The Design Council

There might be a number of reasons you would look to improve your business as a whole, to improve your profit for example, customer base or turnover. Where to start? I bet design isn’t the most obvious answer, but take a look at the points below, you might be quite surprised.

But first, what does a graphic design agency actually do?

“A graphic design agency is made up of professionals within the graphic arts industry who assemble together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design.” This is done to improve the appeal of your business, make you stand out from your competitors and improve your professional reputation.

So what are the benefits of graphic design and how can they help you improve your business?

“Rapidly growing businesses are nearly six times more likely to see design as integral than static businesses.”

-The Design Council

1. Branding

Creating a brand is incredibly important when establishing a business or service. Your brand is how your customers see and remember you. It should automatically connect your customers to what you’re about and what you’re offering. If you’ve got great branding, you will be remembered and referred by your customers.

Your branding should be continuous, right from your logo through to web design, marketing materials, colours and fonts. If you’re brand image is kept the same throughout, it demonstrates consistency and instills trust. It also separates you from your competitors and is how your customers will differentiate between you, high quality branding is vital. A professional creative design agency will be able to wow your customers at first sight.

2. Consistency is key

Hand in hand with branding lies consistency. It’s no good using different logos or colours on different marketing platforms. If you have inconsistency in your design, it makes you look unprofessional.

You don’t want your audience to lose trust with you because they think your marketing efforts match your product or service. Professional graphic design agencies can create you a style/brand guideline to ensure you have consistency across your brand!

"Businesses that see design as integral don’t need to compete on price as much as others."

3. Save it for the experts

Running a busy department or your own business means you’ll always have something to do at the forefront of your mind, it’s probably not learning the latest graphic design software package (which can take years).

Then there’s the sketches, concept design, creation and production. Phew, worn out yet? There’s more to graphic design than colouring in, have you honestly got the time to do all of that...or the skills?

A graphic designer has been specifically trained in their field and can bring expertise to your company, leaving you to utilise in your area of expertise.

4. Save you money

“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design”

-Dr Ralf Speth. CEO Jaguar

What’s that, save money...but how? Put it this way, there are a lot of DIY graphic design sites out there or ‘agencies’ willing it to do it for less than half the price of another quote you’ve obtained. It’s that old cliche, buy cheap, buy twice.

Which is exactly what will happen if you opt for the badly designed graphics, or you decide to do it yourself. When you buy a car you don’t just automatically go for the cheapest one because it might not offer you the full package you’re looking for, date quickly and break down on you. The same goes for Graphic Design!

From the other end of the spectrum, poor design could end up losing you valuable custom. You have 50 milliseconds to make a great impression online with your audience.

A good design means people will stay on your site longer and are more likely to come back, a bad one means unfortunately they’re probably heading straight to your competition.

- The Design Council

5. Return On Investment

Measuring your return on investment is crucial for your business to grow and develop, and a design and marketing strategy should be part of that investment. We are wired to respond better to visual content, 50% of our brains are involved in visual processing.

Many businesses disregard investing in design, but that’s because they’re not aware of the benefits. Think about it, design has been around for years, helping some of the biggest global companies get to where they are today.

Take Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of CEO of yoghurt brand Chobani, he found that a gripping design could help increase his sales. He used a different shape pot, logo and colours to competitors and invested half of his capital ($250,000) into the design of the product’s design and branding.

After less than a decade Chobani is now the top Greek Yoghurt Brand in America, it holds 12.5% market share for yoghurt and is now worth a rumoured $5 billion. Well worth that investment wouldn’t you say?

“Businesses that add value through design see a greater impact on business performancethan the rest.”

- The Design Council

So, a graphic design agency has has more to offer than you first thought, what are you waiting for? Get them involved. Visual content is the way forward and you don’t want to get left behind.